29/06/15

29/06/15

Plan for my EPQ:

Over the Summer holidays I need to research my topic in depth and record what I do in this blog.  By Friday 11th September, I should have completed the bulk of my research and met with my supervisor to discuss my work.

To-do list:
Read 'The Code Book' by Simon Singh
Read 'Alan Turing: The Enigma' by Andrew Hodges
Read 'The Universal History of Numbers' by Georges Ifrah
Participate in UNIQ Summer School, Maths: Numbers and Codes
Read 'The Mathematics of Cryptography' by Paul E. Gunnells
Watch 'Codebreaking in Everyday Life' by John D. Barrow
GCHQ website - attempt to contact
Check newspapers for political referencing to cryptography
Research Alan Turing (BBC iWonder)
Bletchley Park / museum, if possible
Find information from the internet
Check town library / university libraries
Contact lecturers / researchers in the field
Podcasts (Radio 4)
Research further into anything interesting or relevant that comes up
Criticise all sources of information

Key dates:
Friday 2nd October - have essay plan completed
Wednesday 9th December - submit essay draft
Friday 4th March - presentation must have been given
Friday 11th March - final deadline for essay and project blog

Work done today:

I have completed weeks three through to eight of the Future Learn course for 'Developing Your Research Project' by the University of Southampton, so as to prepare myself for the necessary actions needed to carry out a research project with detailed and structured information from a reliable source.  This way, I can be more prepared for when I start my project.

Week three gave may different resources for informations, such as journals, online newspapers and websites that hold statistics, which will benefit my project if I want easily accessable primary and secondary research.  It has also prompted my to change my research question to something more specific; originally my question was going to be about codes, but that topic covers an extremely broad range of sub-topics, such as DNA and computer programming in relation to building websites and apps, which is not necessarily what I would like to research as I'm much more interested in the mathematics and problem-solving aspects of the topic.  I also feel that my original question was unnecessarily long considering that the second part of the question is naturally inferred from the first part and can be elaboratied in my introduction and my abstract.  It is for these reasons that I have changed my research question from 'What method of cryptography has the most advanced level of complexity?  Will there ever be a code that, in theory, could never be broken?' To 'Which method of encryption has the most advanced level of complexity?'  This way I can suggest ways that the encryptions can be improved and consequently suggest whether they could ever be unbreakable.  It also means that I will not have to look into all aspects of cryptography in my project, as it would take ages to look at all of the different types - encryption, decryption, ciphers, keys, steganography - which would take more time and words than I have. (Wooledge.org/~greg/crypto/node1.html, Greg Wooledge, October 2000)

Week four gave the basics of methodology, week five advice on reading techniques, week six information on referencing, week seven instruction on how to possible prepare to write your essay and structure it and week eight helped prepare for a presentation.

Overall, I feel much more confident about starting my EPQ.